CHANT OF GOD NAME

There is no path to attaining the Divine without complete surrender.
And what is surrender? It is the firm realization that “I am not the doer; all actions belong to the Supreme.”
In other spiritual practices, there’s usually some form of deliberate action involved — and wherever there is action, the ego, the sense of “I am doing this,” finds room to exist. But in the remembrance of the Divine Name (Nama Smarana), which is the very nature of the mind, there’s no room for such ego.

Since both remembering and forgetting are not entirely within our control, when the remembrance of the Divine Name naturally happens, it occurs independently of personal effort. Thus, there’s no place for the sense of personal doership.
Even saying “I am remembering the Name” is not entirely accurate, because this remembrance simply happens — it cannot be forced by will.
That’s why there is no spiritual means more suited to surrender than remembrance of the Divine Name.

The second aspect of surrender means stilling all physical, verbal, and mental activities. Not doing is, in many ways, easier than doing — so surrender might appear simple and easily attainable. But in experience, it often proves difficult.
For example, it’s much easier for someone to drive a vehicle fast than to move it extremely slowly.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna tells Arjuna, “Just surrender unto Me.”
But true surrender is not possible as long as body-consciousness remains.
The sense of self as the body, desires, and ego — these are essentially one and the same.
The longing for worldly pleasures and the desire for Divine Realization cannot coexist.

Hence, Lord Krishna advised Uddhava to withdraw into solitude and contemplate upon God, saying only then will you truly attain Me.
This implies that one cannot attain the Divine without turning away from the world.
The ways to achieve worldly things and the path to realize the Divine are fundamentally different.

In worldly life, when a subtle desire arises, one moves physically and uses external objects to fulfill it.
In this way, a subtle urge is expressed in gross, physical action — this is the nature of worldly dealings.
But attaining the Divine is the exact opposite.
Since the Divine is supremely subtle, attaining it means journeying from the gross to the subtle.
Therefore, the means too must lead us from the material towards the subtle.
The Divine Name (Nama) is such a means — connected to the physical through sound, yet intimately linked to the subtle through remembrance.

Without exclusive devotion, the Divine cannot be attained; and from this exclusivity, true devotion is born